Shennong is credited with identifying hundreds of medical (and poisonous) herbs by personally testing their properties, which was crucial to the development of traditional Chinese medicine.
Still worshiped by native Chinese drug guilds as their patron god, Shennong conceivably examined many herbs, barks, and roots brought in from the fields, swamps, and woods that are still recognized in Pharmacy today.
Medicinal plants include podophyllum, rhubarb, ginseng, stramonium, cinnamon bark, and, ma huang, or Ephedra.
The scope for extemporaneous compounding of medicines was much diminished and with it the need for the manipulative skills that were previously applied by the pharmacist to the preparation of bougies, cachets, pills, plasters, and liquids.
Challenges for hospital pharmacists in China have been to develop the theoretical and technological knowledge of pharmacy, and to expand the scientific and technical information system that is necessary to do research.
The basic four-year curriculum in the colleges of pharmacy, for example, embraces physics, chemistry, biology, bacteriology, physiology, pharmacology, and many other specialized courses.
As the pharmacist is engaged in a business as well as a profession, special training is provided in merchandising, accounting, computer techniques, and pharmaceutical jurisprudence.
Subjects: Reforms made to provide an individualized, state-of-the-art learning environment that facilitates the development of students' knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors needed by the pharmacy profession and society at-large, so they provide high quality pharmaceutical care: Competency-based education with an emphasis on patient-oriented practice and accountability are the current and future trends in pharmacy education.
Reforms have been made to promote state-of the-art pharmaceutical sciences in curricula when at the same time there is a shift from product-oriented to patient-oriented pharmacy education and practice.
There has seen a radical change in curriculum and organisational structure focussing on problem-oriented and student centred educational methods, in order to optimally prepare future practitioners and scientists.
In the recent 20–30 years there has appeared a tendency to "return to nature" owing to the toxic and side effects of chemical medicines and the drug-induced diseases caused by them.
The therapeutic effects of the compound preparations of some traditional Chinese materia medica can be compared clinically with those of Western medicines and are expressed in modern scientific indexes.
This provides the material foundation of the compound preparations of traditional Chinese materia medica and the modernization of the expression of their therapeutic activities.
During the first years of the foundation of the People's Republic of China, the courses and the management model of the semester system were introduced from the Soviet Union.
Since 1978 there have been rapid and profound changes in China which have produced differences between the previous educational model and the pace of the reform of the economic system.
Students who major in different fields of pharmacy have taken common basic courses such as mathematics, chemistry, biology and computer sciences.
For example, the employers, such as hospitals, factories, research institutions, companies and others who need professional personnel can designate the employees with practical experience to be trained in universities.
These stations play an important role in stimulating academic exchange, training high-level professional personnel and attracting the overseas-trained students to come back.
In 1995 more students were enrolled in some specialties than in 1990 because of the rapid development of the health and medical economies in China which need more personnel in the fields of pharmacy.
Anhui: Beijing: Chongqing: Fujian: Guangxi: Guangdong: Guizhou: Gansu: Hebei: Henan: Heilongjiang: Hong Kong: Hubei: Hunan: Jiangsu: Jiangxi: Jilin: Liaoning: Macau: Neimeng: Ningxia: Qinghai: Shaanxi: Shanxi: Shandong: Shanghai: Sichuan: Tianjin: Xinjiang: Yunnan: Zhejiang: To practice pharmacy in China in which a license is required, an applicant must be qualified by graduation from a recognized college of pharmacy, meet specific requirements for experience, and pass an examination conducted by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association as appointed by the government.
These laws recognize the national pharmacopoeia (which defines products used in medicine, their purity, dosages, and other pertinent data) as the standard for drugs.
Another facet of pharmaceutical research that has attracted wide medical attention is the "availability" to the body (bioavailability) of various dosage forms of drugs.
Proprietary rights for innovation by the grant of patents and by the registration of trademarks have become increasingly important in the growth of the domestic pharmaceutical industry and its development internationally.
Many of the state-owned pharmacy companies had consolidated to establish chains or franchises, and many more have contracted day-to-day management to an entrepreneur who pays a small percentage of the profits to its hands-off government owner.
In Beijing and Shanghai, the local governments stopped approving applications for new pharmacies about three years ago, but is allowing chain stores to increase their number of outlets.
Domestic pharmaceutical giant Sanjiu Enterprise Group has planned to open 8,000 to 10,000 outlets at a cost of 1.3 billion yuan (US$157 million).
The key players in the drugstore industry in China are [6]: As a result of the development of society and national economy, the people's health care level and the sense of self-medication are gradually improving.
Limited resources, amidst increasing demand for services, are leading to significant change in the implementation of health care in China, especially manifested lately in the pricing and reimbursement of pharmaceuticals.
Pharmacoeconomic research, either used when health providers examine different treatments to make cost-effective decisions, or when regulatory institutions estimate the greater value of a new product to set a reimbursement level, marks the horizon for the world's pharmaceutical markets.
The upsurge import of more Western drugs now with the World Trade Organization (WTO) entry is another force leading to China's eventual progress in this area.